When President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson of Iceland came to open the 2010 World Geothermal Congress on April 226 in Bali with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono it was as if the fiery spirit of geothermal energy was angry with the human race.
The Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull had thrown up huge clouds of ash
Given a name like that, who would not be angry?
The World Geothermal Congress 2010 hopefully marks a turning point for an industry which just reached global electrical production capacity of 10 GWe – or 10,000 megawatts (MW) - although Indonesia alone probably needs an extra 5 GWe every year to keep up with demand.
But first a former leader of OPEC is going to drill, baby, drill for oil and gas. [sigh]
Addictions are hard to cure even for an island nation most vulnerable to the effects of global warming.
The 2,500 Geothermal Congress participants in Bali looked like a cross-section of a green technology movement in transition. The crowd ranged from bearded latter-day hippie geo-technology freaks, to green idealists to bright young professionals and earnest bureaucrats from countries seeking to learn how to regulate a new energy business. Not to mention a growing number of harder-nosed blue-suited business leaders learning how to make money out of an industry with high front-end costs and big exploration risks.
Sure presents a different picture from another meeting - a wild celebration in Hawaii not all that long ago where Sen. Daniel Inouye bragged of getting a grant from Uncle Sam to help end forever geothermal development in a section of Hawaii.
That was said to be very pleasing to Pele, the Fire Goddess of Hawaii. I admit to never understanding wimmin, let along goddesses.
Not all the DFH's are yet converted to the side of light.
geothermal energy must serve the poor as well as the rich, the rural as well as the urban and small communities and interests as well as big ones, with micro and medium-sized power as well as larger-scale. Such thinking is almost unheard of in Indonesia but means it would be possible to help villages with their own geothermal power.
But some of the bright young professionals in Bali, and social visionaries, knew what to do and the expertise from Iceland, Germany, other EU countries and the USA needs to reach rural Indonesia, East Africa and other places where social balance is essential and large-scale development will not be possible given resources or appropriate to needs.
Maybe America needs first to help itself. Nearly all geothermal power development in this country is being done by companies based in Canada, Israel, Iceland and Italy. We even buy geothermal power from Mexico.
As far as I know, there were no Americans representing the U.S. at the World Geothermal Congress though other countries from all over the planet were there.
Best, Terry